Friday, January 22, 2016

Decapitation

Hat tip to Svenn at ‘Defense & Freedom’ for linking to a great article over
at WOTR. The article itself is primarily about going back to the proven method of interdiction instead of the theories of Douhet. However the primary message I get from it regards the impotent strategy of trying to decapitate the enemy.http://warontherocks.com/2015/09/the-five-ring-circus-how-airpower-enthusiasts-forgot-about-interdiction/Cutting off the head of a snake may be an instinctive reaction, and it works because the head is wherethe venom and fangs are. But it does not
work against an entire nest of vipers. And it does
not work against a hydra despite the old Greek legend of Hercules and his nephew Iolaus. Plus, they (Herc and Iolaus) had advice and inspiration from the goddess Athena. Decapitation certainly does not work against networks and probably would not
work against most organizations.

We should of course target any enemy HQ or CP that are obvious. But it seems reckless to me to devote resources specifically to hunting down and killing enemy leadership that regenerates itself so cheaply and easily.

As far as interdiction, sure, the coalition against Daesh should use it tactically. But for strategic interdiction against them, doesn't that belong more in the realm of diplomacy, intelligence, Interpol, and the criminal courts?

Glad to see it was an Air Force Officer who penned that article.Perhaps he will be listened to and Air Combat Command will do some rethinking? Or perhaps not. This country needs some advice and inspiration.

37 comments:

The critique was a lot against Warden's 5 rings nonsense."5 rings" is in my opinion not a strategy, but an excuse for bombing just about everything one can detect.EBO claims that it's possible to determine where the levers for victory through air power are, whereas 5 rings claims you need to bomb just about everything.

In practice neither is being used much. The story of the Kosovo Air War shows how unimaginative and primitive targeting really is. The USAF and other NATO air forces have long ago dropped below mid-1944 sophistication in their targeting. They conceal this with the sophistication of their strike packages. The Libya air campaign racket and the anti-"ISIS" campaign appear to be just as primitive.

They bomb something, observe no decisive results, call for more resources and extend the target list, observe no decisive results, call for more resources and extend the target list, rinse & repeat.

Re: 1944...the quotes in the article make it clear that the 1944 interdiction campaign worked largely because it smashed the French railways and the march columns of the armored reserves trying to move towards Normandy. Not sure if there's a historical parallel there that would allow us to conclude that USAF targeting has become less sophisticated. The Iraqi and Serb columns got hit - it was the units in place that largely survived thru good camouflage and use of decoys...

Not trying to make excuses for the wing-wipers, but the summer of '44 seems very much of a one-off ideal to me...

From another article at WOR:Eliot Cohen, in “The Mystique of U.S. Air Power,” published in Foreign Affairs in 1994, wrote, “Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength, in part because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment.”

mike wrote:We should of course target any enemy HQ or CP that are obvious. But it seems reckless to me to devote resources specifically to hunting down and killing enemy leadership that regenerates itself so cheaply and easily.

Here is the heart of the matter. There is a world of difference between disruption and decapitation. Nature abhors a vacuum, and to assume that a given blow to an an opponent will somehow create a permanent vacuum is folly.

Pietrucha makes a very valid point in that interdiction shapes the battle. Rather than be seduced by the "single blow" approach, he recognizes the element of the passage of time in conflict, and how interdiction can continuously influence what can happen as that time passes. While his primary focus is on logistics and movement of troops, one could, and should, take the same view of so called "key leaders". Unlike logistics, persons able to lead may be readily available at the point of battle not just "rear areas". While major maneuver warfare fortunes might be influenced for a time by loss of a key operational thinker, we are not talking major maneuver warfare here.

I've read a bit about logistics, and doubt that disrupting the flow of supplies would work in the European terrain, or example. It's too easy to radio alerts about the presence of strike packages and dispersed supply movement by tiny convoys or even individual trucks would be impractical to identify and track in a large theatre of war. Almost all drivers would survive the round trip many times.

I'm also skeptical about bombing depots, since for example Russia's depots are largely out of range. Air force depots (which house little but scarce missiles and spare parts) are a worthy target, of course.

To reduce the freedom of mvoement of hostile forces of battalion battlegroup size is on the other hand most promising, for it directly influences the ground campaign if one side is more limited in its freedom of movement. In the best case one can force hostile troops to march with great dispersion, making particularly the support elements susceptible to ground manoeuvre and ambushes.

Rgearding HQs and CPs; the timing is essential. The attrition view is not suported by historical successes save for Darius and other princes from the pre-state period, but a temporary disruption of leadership can induce reaction lags which can prove decisive in ground manoeuvres.

The larger the theater and scale of war, the greater the logistical burden per unit of time. If logistics fall behind the optempo, you lose your ability to conduct effective, sustained operations. The author's point on interdiction is quite valid.

IF logistics fall behind (and that's in this context only relevant so far as this is air power's effect), then one can compare it to the effort spent on offensive air power.

Dispersed movement of supplies under cover by jammers against long-range SAR and under enough air defences and fighter cover to force the opposing air force into using strike packages (no continuity of overhead threat) are all powerful tools against interdiction.

The combined air forces in 1991 were able to wreck some Iraqi columns, producing impressive photos of a "highway of death", but meanwhile (IIRC the author mentions this) most Iraqi divisions were moving unscathed.

One principal problem with interdiction is that most of it would need to happen at great depths, which requires mroe expensive planes, more support aviation and ultimately goes beyond the reach of some support (particularly AEW, which would get pushed back by long-range missiles and thus be unable to assist blue planes over red-dominated territory).

It's quite a gamble to trust air power much, even in regard to interdiction. There are terribly many coutnermeasures, and interdiction capabilities are damn expensive.

Meanwhile, we lack first and foremost mechanised brigades for mobile peer vs. peer warfare with the ability to deploy 1,000-2,000 km by road march in a few days.

sven- In no way was I suggesting that air interdiction is the end all, be all, nor was the author. Rather, he was comparing roles and missions. The "Great Awakening" in US Army doctrine in 1983 addressed this as "Air-Land Battle" replaced the so called "Active-Defense". One of the glaring shortfalls in the latter was the US Army's failure to have a rational unit in contact resupply approach. It was so lacking that Captains at the Armor Officer Advanced Course I attended in 1978 raised the subject. As the Army re-evaluated our doctrinal approach to land warfare, part of the "Deep Battle" was the interdiction of not only follow on Soviet forces, but their logistics to the points of contact. You don't have to clobber the factory to deny logistics to units in contact, but just have to interdict the supplies before they are of value. The mantra of the Armor Branch in my day was, "Shoot, Move and Communicate". Can't do the first two without logistical support, even over distances of 50 km.

In the Drone Pilot Award thread, I mentioned the amazing performance of an ARTY NCO in managing resupply. That action is an excellent example of logistical demands in combat. The field site was occupied by an Infantry Bn, reinforced by an Armored Cav Troop (-) and an Arty Battery. They came under attack from a reinforced NVA Regt. The fighting lasted nearly 12 hours. During that time, two Chinooks flew a total of 15 hours of constant resupply, at a rate of about 6 - 7 tons of ammo per hour, per Chinook, or a consumption rate of 12 - 14 tons per hour by a Reinf Bn sized unit with supporting Arty. Had this resupply been reduced by just 33%, the NVA might very well have overrun the base. For that very reason, we had a third Chinook and crew ready for immediate launch (20 min flight away) should one of the two flying the mission suffer too much battle damage or have a maint problem.

And, this was the requirements for defending a static position, not a maneuvering force.

One got to remember that this also shows a great degree of incompetence on part fo the ground combat troops. The entire NVA regiment likely expended less ammunition than the Armored Cav Troops alone.

Besides, supply needs are often rather small for a manoeuvring force compared to assault or defence. Especially pursuit needs very little ammunition (though a lot more fuel). The less movement, the more ammo is expended.

If ones crosses the discussion of interdiction with the rise of missile defense you can see a new kind of interdiction arising - continental air interdiction.

Missile defense interceptors typically go really really fast. This means that they can go really really far (especially if they can spend much of their time above much of the thick atmosphere.) They also have to be precisely guided to the very edge of their range.

Furthermore, sensors are now fabulously more sensitive. Vast amounts of signal processing is cheap with the rise of super powerful DSP chips. Software radio means that you don't need to cut new hardware to change frequencies or analysis techniques. Simply execute a different program. This makes detection and tracking much easier and countermeasures much harder.

Together, these two technologies suggest that it will be easy to create continent sized anti-aircraft umbrellas. Sure, fighters and stealth aircraft may be hard to spot, but big fat transports and civilian airliners are just so much missile fodder.

Can you imagine trying to operate in a theatre where no large aircraft dares to fly within 2000 km of the conflict area? You can see a foretaste of this with the Russian S400, but it only has a 400km range.

The role of guided ballistic missiles in scenarios such as war in Koreas or in Eastern Europe is likely limited to attacks on airbases, ships in harbours and on major bridges. Such missiles are quite expensive and thus rare - not a reasonable muition against march columns.

You don't need traditional active radar. The world is full of electromagnetic emitters whose locations are precisely known. Cell phone towers, radio towers, etc etc. They all create signals against which aircraft interfere. Receivers likewise need to be precisely located, but are not active emitters (except in coordinating with the central control).

Receivers can work OTH but admittedly not as well as line of sight. With a little imagination you imagine all sorts of methods to place them (including satellites and high flying aircraft). Furthermore, with the large number of emitters you can pick and choose the best signal via software radio.

The days of co-located radar transmitter / receiver / missiles are long gone.

To All,isn't it reasonable to believe that isis has deep militry roots and that they practice deception and use remotes etc...?to decapitate only works on vertical organizations, and isis appears to be horizontal.jim hruska

I'll add this to Jim's observation; decapitation strikes on a franchise insurgent group like the IS actually may help that group by acting as a form of QC. The bulk of the leaders killed will be those less cunning at adapting to airstrikes. The survivors - which will be most of them, since low-density infantry-heavy outfits like the IS are hard to butcher from the air - will be the ones who best learn and adapt...

These organisations mix private life with business. They cannot employ actors as fake leaders because the (largely social) contact with subordinates is what determines the leader.It's not the same as in an army where a fake general could issue orders and subordinate officers follow. Instead, it's more as in the mafia. The same applies to most warlord-type forces.

It's only the abstract bureaucracy that creates the anonymity required for puppets as nominal leaders.

Thing about these franchise insurgent groups, Jim, is that I'm not sure how dependant on a true hierarchical "leadership" they are. I suspect they're more like stosstruppen; swarming and task-directed. If they lose one captain from one group another swarms ahead...these aren't the sorts of dictator-goon armies like Saddam's or Ghaddafi's that ccan't fight without direction from The Leader.

Agreed about the disinformatsia. The leaders are probably well dug in deep in tunnels underneath Mosul and Raqqa? Or aboveground disguised as ladies in burqas?? Or safe in Turkish safe houses and/or with the House of Saud???

But I strongly disagree that decapitation: " ... works on vertical organizations ... " It may work on a dysfunctional vertical organization where all of the people in the stovepipe underneath El Supremo are ready to quit. But it will not work on most.

Off-topic, but...Barzani is out calling for a referendum on Kurdish independence again as the Baghdad government pleads bankruptcy and the Turks and the PKK are slapfighting again. Anyone w publishing rights here interested in discussing the Kurdish Question and its implications for further conflict in the Fertile Crescent?

I for one would like to see the Kurds finally get their homeland and to govern themselves. If anyone deserves their own Patria, it is the Kurdish people.

Unfortunately for them they are surrounded by powerful neighbors who are dead set against it.

Secondly while their multiculturism is a shining example for the MidEast and for us all, it is also a weakness. They tend to fight among themselves. You would think they are American large 'D' Democrats in another circular firing squad. They fought a major civil war among themselves just a few years ago. They are Sunni, Shia, Yezidi, Kakai, secularists, capiatalists, communists, even a few Kurds were ISIS jihadis. There are reportedly still Kurdish whirling dervishes in the Zagros range.

Some consider Iranians as allies, some favor the Turks, some the west. But I fear even America will abandon them. As for discussion here re further conflict, I am not the person for it as it would be pure speculation on my part.

As for 'slapfighting'???? From what I hear Erdogan is already opening an 'Armenian solution' against his own citizens of Kurd blood, civilians as well PKK fighters.

Thanks AEL, I am aware of some of their business relations. However I was not aware that they were in-laws. Or was that tongue-in-cheek? I could not find a link, how close is that relationship - children or siblings? or more distant cousins? Erdogan has been called both a Georgian and an Armenian by some of his Turkish politicl , but never that I know has he been assumed to be of Kurdish heritage. And his current actions against the Kurds of Turkey kind of rule against that IMHO.

If true that they are in fact related by marriage then does that mean you think that Erdo will endorse Barzani's referendum?

I am trying to remember where I read about the relationship. I believe it goes through Erdogan's daughter who is married to Berat Albayrak (energy minister) who has a relation by marriage with the Barzani family (which is why he got the Kurdish oil deal).

I took myself off the admin list because I felt I was dominating the conversation around here. But at this point I'm wondering if it's not worthwhile getting back on the bar staff rotation. I'd hate to see the joint just drift away.

Gang? Any thoughts? Anybody wanting to step up here, or should we shut it down, or should I get back on the staff? What?

Good idea. What's starting to worry me is the signs of inattention like the spam comment below. It's easy to lose readership and hard to get it back if you just stop generating content...and then all you get are spammers.